This weekend’s SNL season 45 premiere included a few surprises, including the return of both Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris and Alec Baldwin as President Trump (despite the talk show host recently saying that he’d rather be killed by a meteorite than pick up the impersonation again). The episode pulled out plenty of stops with Woody Harrelson and musical guest Billie Eilish (who defied gravity), but one featured player was notably missing: Pete Davidson.
NBC definitely included Davidson on the list of returning cast members for this season, so what gives? Well, it’s not too difficult to figure out that he was not in New York City but Atlanta, Georgia this weekend. On Saturday evening, The Suicide Squad director James Gunn tweeted a cast photo that includes several key cast members (both returning and new), including Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, John Cena, Nathan Fillion, and (in the back row, on the right) Davidson. The group had attended a Joker screening, and according to Instagramming comedian Steve Agee, who’s playing King Shark, they (or at least he) “loved it.”
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1178107683876016128
There’s still no official word on who Davidson will be playing, or if his character will last about as long as Suicide Squad‘s Slipknot, which would mean that we could expect him back on SNL fairly quickly. After all, the movie only began filming a few weeks ago, as revealed by Boomerang himself, Jai Courtney, while he was on a flight to Atlanta. The franchise relaunch will also feature returning cast member Viola Davis and a ton of other talent, including Taika Waititi and Idris Elba, both of whom were apparently not on hand for this weekend’s Joker festivities.
The Suicide Squad will hit theaters on August 6, 2021.
